If I were to tell you that I have been interested in murder from an early age, you would probably conjure up an image of me as one of those gloomy, sallow youths who cowered in the shadow of the popular boys and wanted nothing more than to be left alone. The truth is, however, that that I was rather popular at school. While I would never be in contention for Head Boy and I didn’t have a place on the first XI, I had a reasonably well developed circle of friends and could pull a decent stroke whenever circumstances dictated that I should put on the whites.